And then there was the mud march, and then General Ambrose E.

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And then there was the Muslim e-mail thing and that hasn't worked out so well, and now it's the patriotism thing.

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"With the telex you could actually chat with the editor there and then but with e-mail, if something goes wrong during transmission, you can't know it immediately and you get a query on why you did not file, " he says.

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Then there is consumer e-waste - people here love gadgets, and love to change them regularly.

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So even though most of your e-mail may not be urgent or even interesting, every now and then there is something you really do want to know about while you're on vacation -- perhaps even just office gossip.

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